President Trump Announces Iran Strategy

On Friday, President Donald J. Trump announced his Administration’s strategy for addressing the rogue regime in Iran and announced his decision not to certify under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Act (INARA). Affirming that his “highest obligation is to ensure the safety and security of the American people,” the President called for bold steps to confront the Iranian regime’s hostile actions and ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon.

President Trump lauded the “clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world” that formed the basis for the Administration’s new approach.

The strategy the President outlined included four major objectives, the first of which is working with allies to “counter the regime’s destabilizing activity and support for terrorist proxies in the region.” President Trump also vowed to “place additional sanctions on the regime to block their financing of terror.” Third, the President plans to “address the regime’s proliferation of missiles and weapons that threaten its neighbors, global trade, and freedom of navigation.” Finally, the President promised to take necessary steps to “deny the regime all paths to a nuclear weapon.”

The President announced that he “cannot and will not” certify under the provisions of INARA, but did not call for withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, though he spoke of its many flaws. Instead he directed the Administration to work “work closely with Congress and our allies to address the deal’s many serious flaws.

Noting that “the longer we ignore a threat, the worse that threat becomes” the President expressed his determination to deny the Iranian regime nuclear weapons and pledged that “we will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror.”